MIDLAND COUNTY, Mich. – It’s been eight months since the devastating floods in Midland County.
The historic flooding in Midland forced 10,000 residents to evacuate. One family has been without their cat since it went missing when the water surged, but they were recently reunited in a story of survival and -- perhaps -- divine interventions.
“We’re religious folks and we think that God played a hand in it,” Jeremy Flood said.
“She did find us for a reason, I believe,” Ashley Flood said. “And so, we actually, we definitely played our part, I think.”
On a cold snowy winter day, The Flood family heard a cat outside meowing for hours.
“It seemed well fed and its coat was rather clean,” Ashley Flood said. “We just figured that it was someone’s cat and that it would go back home.”
But Ashley couldn’t stop thinking about the cat and that night, she prayed for guidance.
“I thought that if I needed a sign, He would give it to me one way or another,” Ashley said.
The next morning, the cat hadn’t left and they could still hear her cry for help.
Jeremy and Ashley put together a shelter from a cardboard box and towels and the cat instantly entered it. They said they could tell that the cold winter was taking its toll on the cat.
“She was visibly shaking and couldn’t keep her paws on the snow anymore,” Ashley said. “And so, at that point, we thought that she needed to come in.”
Ashley and Jeremy fell in love with the cat, but wanted to see if it had a family. They took the cat to the Humane Society of Midland County and found out the cat was micochipped.
“Within five minutes, they got a phone call, and it was the owner, claiming the cat and she was so skeptical,” Ashley said. “The person told me because she didn’t realize, or she they thought that she was gone, because she had been missing for so long and they lost her in the flood.”
The cat, named Olive, had been separated from her family since May.
“I just can’t imagine what the emotions that they were feeling,” Ashley said. “I think she’s just a survivor, surviving on her own for that long. Who knows how far she traveled?”
“If there’s an opportunity to help someone or feel some compassion for someone or something, I encourage you to take that compassion and run with it, see where it goes,” Jeremy added.